This person is either a fake or a complete idiot. Paying $1.4M for a (likely split level) house in that area? I don’t believe this story. Sorry… know the area well. Homes of that square footage in that area - even at the peak - went for under $1M.
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There is definitely a sea change in the market.
To that level I don’t know.
My neighbor sold for $1.149M on a $998 list with 7 offers in one day. Never moved in. Told was a Dr and had a contract renewed at home. Sold it for $1.249 like 3 months later. Less than a year ago.
A bigger home, across the street and on the lake listed 3-4 months ago at 1.249. Closed at $1.050. A year ago maybe $1.4m.
There’s definitely been a decline and more rapid than the news shows. Not 50% of course but I gotta tell you there was a feeding frenzy till 6 mos ago or so. High prices. No inspections. You name it.
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There is definitely a decline and a slow down in the market. But definitely not 50% - at least not yet.
I know a bit about the market firsthand because my husband and I advised a younger couple on their first home purchase. We were the second pair of eyes for them.
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I’m in one of the markets cited in the story above.
Things certainly have cooled, but not crashed, and the prices now are where they should be. People were buying at ridiculous prices. I live in a middle-class neighborhood. I bought a foreclosure a long time ago for less $80k to give you an idea of the level of homes. In the frenzy, we had multiple homes sell for more than $1 million. Insanity. No way they could get that now.
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She might be, but a prenup will not change that. In a community property state, both parties own 100% of the whole, not 50% or half. There are still things that are outside the ‘community’ like an inheritance and amounts earned before the marriage (until they are co-mingled like used for a house downpayment).
And a court order for maintenance can be amended, just as it can be in a non-community property state. The court can also set it for a specific amount of time. It is really unlikely that a judge would award alimony for life for a short term marriage without kids in the picture.
In a non-community property state, a spouse is not responsible for debts taken out by one party, but the marital assets may be used to pay those debts. MAY be, but not necessarily (may depend on if the debt was taken for a family or marital purpose and not a trip to Vegas). My father died with a lot of credit card debt but my mother wasn’t liable for those debts because they were in his name only. If it is a joint debt, Visa or JCPenny doesn’t care that the divorce decree assigns the debt to one spouse or the other, the creditor is going to go against anyone on the account, especially the easier accounts to get to, like the employee with a paycheck rather than the self employed person. The SPOUSES can go against the other spouse who was supposed to pay the debt according to the decree, but the creditors aren’t bound by the divorce decree.
Lee Marvin learned the hard way.
" To succeed on a Marvin claim, the person filing the lawsuit must prove all of the elements of whatever causes of action are being asserted. For contract-based claims, there must be a clear agreement between the partners that defines the extent of financial sharing or support."
In our state, there are mostly hot or hotter timex in the market. When my niece bid on her house, she was one of 7 above listing offers. She had to write a personal letter and allow seller to have a studio on premises rent-free for x months to win the house.
My son has been looking to buy a house for over six months now. He still see a lot of people with a lot of cash. Prices went down about 15% but that is all.
That’s a lot.
I wan kicking myself for not selling. And getting into an apartment.
People buy homes for different reasons. Our kid bought to stabilize his monthly lodging costs. Rent increased by almost double between 2019 and 2021. His current mortgage with all costs added in (taxes, insurance) is still a little more than half of what he was paying for rent.
And he doesn’t plan to move soon. And loves the location.
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Zillow makes the house easy to identify:
12207 NE 134th Street, Kirkland, WA 98034
3 bd, 2ba, 1440 sq ft
Sold for $1,310,000 on 4/20/22 so perhaps they were smoking something!
Zillow also offers this comp:
13444 123rd Avenue NE, Kirkland, WA 98034
3bd, 2ba, 1410 sq ft
Sold on 11/30/22 for $830,000
Super-cute house, but ouch on the price.
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If this really is the house, it confirms the second option: the person was an idiot (or as you put it, was smoking something). Overpaid - but not 50% IMO.
I would not put much faith into the Zillow “comp” - the comp is an ugly split level house. That type of houses is not very popular here and usually gets a substantial discount compared to one level homes or even tri levels.
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The home price history suggests it sold for $600K in Jan 2020. How much of that difference is likely to be retraced in the next year or two? I agree they were foolish, but there’s always someone who gets trapped when the market turns. Lots of people rushed in last spring to get ahead of rising interest rates.
Seems pretty plausible that if they got laid off today and had to sell, it would be hard to clear $870K after realtor commission and moving expenses ($870K + 50% = $1.3M), so a 50% increase from today’s value is probably needed to breakeven.
I agree that the interest rates scared many into making not-great decisions. Here, we have Californians moving in, and to them I’m sure some of these seemed like bargain prices. We neighbors were like, whatever. I know locals who got cash offers from out of state and used that money to downsize. They still paid a premium but on less house and in areas with schools that aren’t rated as highly now that they were empty nesters. So, they were able to get a mint for their homes, relocate to a desirable area and still pocket a lot of coin.
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The home sold in August of 2019. Looks like the owners did some significant updates, including addition of AC, before selling in 2022.
Adding AC isn’t all that’ll expensive. We just did it in our tiny home and it didn’t break our budget. My niece did it in her much larger home and they put lots of units upstairs and down. I think they paid under $40,000.
I think it depends. Adding AC to our house is going to be well in excess of $20,000
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It depends on the house, the type of HVAC, and the size. We were quoted $10-15K per floor.
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Maybe the Zillow zestimate will make him feel better 
. He could be an idiot exacerbated by smoking something 
but more likely he and his spouse were caught up in the frenzy and they have serious buyers remorse…a $1,000,000 mortgage is a serious chunk of change….in any market…. but he must be making a good salary to qualify. And what is the spouse expecting to change by fleeing the property 
?
: $1,310,000 Sold on 04/20/22 Zestimate®: $1,236,600
Many west coast heating/aircon systems are forced air, not window mounted. You just add an air cooling unit under the furnace and a single condenser outside. A larger house might have a separate upstairs furnace (forced air from the attic through ceiling vents in addition to floor vents on the ground floor). But a single unit and external condenser shouldn’t be more than $20K if the vents are already there and your furnace doesn’t need to be replaced, I think we paid $8K to install it about 15 years ago.